Travel Report: 2016 PCA, Day 6: Back to “Normal”

Am I already writing about a sixth day at the PCA? Have I been here that long?

After the craziness marking the conclusion of Day 2 of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event, Day 3 was a relatively “normal” day of tournament poker that saw 195 players work their way down to 73, with the jovial Brazilian Leonardo Pires accumulating chips all day to spend a second straight night as the chip leader. Have to use scare quotes with that word when used in connection with poker, of course, as “normal” here ain’t quite what most take that term to mean.

Speaking of the craziness from Sunday, check out Brad Willis’s long form treatment of the Antonio Esfandiari disqualification and all of the surrounding circumstances, titled “The Longest Lunge.”

Pires winning pot after pot at one of the central tables in the tournament area earned a lot of attention and some entertaining table talk from his opponents. Meanwhile a table over the Scotsman Martin McCormick was a nonstop barrage of bantering and badgering, seemingly fueled in part by a drink or three. He’d earn a penalty before the night ended for all of his antics, although he produced a few grins, too, among those observing.

It’s another cloudy day today, although I might stubbornly go sit poolside for a little bit here before I go in a little later to help with the coverage of the $25K High Roller, an eight-handed NLHE event with a single re-entry.

This is the last of what are three big “high roller’ events among the 104 numbered events on the schedule, the previous being the $100K Super High Roller won by Bryn Kenney and the $50K Single-Day High Roller that Steve O’Dwyer took down.

Last year this $25K event drew 269 entries (including 69 reentries). Will be curious to see how many show this time around. Looking at the other high rollers this year, the $100K SHR drew 58 entries (up from 50 a year ago), while the $50K Single-Day attracted 80 entries. (There wasn’t a $50K at the PCA last year.)

Is this really Event No. 74? Have I been here that long? And those eight-foot green moray eels over in the Dig (an underground aquarium here), are they really that long?

Slink over to the Pokerstars blog today for $25K reports and more from the Main Event.

Photo: courtesy Carlos Monti/PokerStars blog (top).

Travel Report: 2016 PCA, Day 5: Planet Earth is Blue and There’s Nothing I Can Do

Had great fun early yesterday going on the water slides with my buddy Remko Rinkema. Nothing funnier than seeing Remko get dumped out of a tube, except maybe him coming over and dumping me after I couldn’t stop laughing.

Of course, when I woke up this morning I was initially thinking about the Esfandiari disqualification from late on Day 2 of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event, obviously the most memorable part of covering the event yesterday. Then I learned the news of David Bowie’s passing, and that has pushed aside the other story from my thoughts a bit as I ready for today’s Day 3.

I had actually been covering Esfandiari’s section yesterday, and even reported on a couple of hands and some of his table talk with fellow Super High Roller Talal Shakerchi who was seated at his table. Esfandiari was in Seat 1 and Shakerchi in Seat 8, on either side of the dealer, and so I saw them leaned back and talking to each other frequently as I passed by the table.

We got back from the last break of the night, and I actually caught a small hand involving Esfandiari and had gone to report it when the DQ occurred, so I wasn’t on the floor at the time. His being removed from the tournament was much bigger news than the small hand I had, so I scrapped it while the DQ was reported on the PokerStars blog:

“We've just been informed that Antonio Esfandiari has been disqualified from the Main Event. According to Edgar Stuchly, Esfandiari was removed for a serious breach of tournament etiquette.”

I heard some talk at a neighboring table that suggested a reason for the disqualification, although it was one of those weird situations where I simply didn’t trust my own ears. In fact, I didn’t even share what I’d heard with anyone until after it was confirmed that yes, indeed, I had understood what the player at the neighboring table had said.

You’ve no doubt heard about what Esfandiari did, too, along with the story of his prop bet with Bill Perkins which occasioned his transgression. If not, just do a quick search of “Esfandiari” and “disqualification” and I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough. Seriously bad judgment on his part -- piss-poor, you might say.

I have a few other behind-the-scenes tidbits related to it all -- including one very funny one -- but I think I might save that stuff until after the PCA is done. I will say the tourney staff absolutely made the right call, and also handled the business of administering the disqualification well.

But like I say, I’m thinking more about Bowie today, kind of marveling at how “alive” he seemed to many of us over such a long period. It was just a few days ago his birthday had come back around -- his 69th -- and I suppose when it comes to celebrities hearing about a birthday always puts them back in the foreground, although like I say he always seemed to be there for me.

I’m one of those devotees who has 16 LPs of his on my iPod (plus “Under Pressure” with Queen, natch), with really only the middle period of the 1990s and early 2000s not represented. Realized today how I’ve more or less internalized all 16 of those records, and in fact have probably listened to every one of them at some point during the last 1-2 years. And of course, we hear him on the radio several times a week, especially in the barn where we keep it on the classic rock station.

I very much liked his penultimate one, The Next Day (2013), and was already thinking about picking up what will turn out to be his last, Blackstar. That’s part of what I mean about him seeming “alive.” In fact, just yesterday when making a reference to glam rock to someone I evoked his name -- it seems like he’s always right there, somehow, as an example of something (if that makes any sense).

I had one chance to see Bowie back in the late 1980s for what was probably his least regarded tour, the Glass Spider one. Still there was a nice run through of various Ziggy and Aladdin Sane tracks, and while the props and theatrics were certainly overblown, it was a fun spectacle to witness.

Ziggy is probably tops for me, with the Eno trilogy close behind. Station to Station is a sleeper and in fact probably the album I’ve listened to the most times, oddly enough, followed by Aladdin Sane, Hunky Dory, Scary Monsters, and The Man Who Sold the World.

Meanwhile I’m fairly certain the early one, Space Oddity, is the one I’ve listened to the least, not ever quite getting into that early, nascent identity of Bowie’s. But the single keeps floating there as a perfect little time capsule, worth opening up and playing again and again. As I’ll continue to do, and many others who are feeling a little blue today will, too.

A little under 200 remain in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event. Again, go over to the PokerStars blog for updates, photos, and also to find the live stream.

Photo: “Bowie performing in Oslo on 5 June 1978,” Helge Øverås. CC BY 3.0.

Travel Report: 2016 PCA, Day 4: Smart Like Sotiropoulos

The LAPT Bahamas Main Event final day went relatively quickly, with 10 players getting down to one after just over six hours of play.

Georgios Sotiropoulos had the lead to start the day, and might have lost it briefly just before they got to the offical eight-handed final table when he was back in front. From there he never lost the lead again, building a huge stack and constantly pressuring the others to take down the tournament and claim the $308,220 first prize.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sotiropoulos becomes the first LAPT champion from Greece (not too many Greek players make it to South America for LAPTs). Meanwhile Andre Akkari was the first out yesterday in 10th, the last of the LAPT regs to be eliminated.

The most interesting thing about the final table was recognizing how Sotiropoulos -- who has a WSOP Europe bracelet, a Sunday Million win, and now is pushing $2 million lifetime in live earnings -- was himself recognizing the ICM implications in play when he had a big lead and was surrounded by shorties with less than a third of his chips. Smart player, and while up against some tough opponents who knew what they were doing, too, he knew exactly what to do to make his success especially likely.

That pic above (via Carlos Monti of the PokerStars blog) is from heads-up play. Sotiropoulos’s opponent at the end, Taylor Von Kriegenbergh, played a smart game, too, I thought, ably picking spots and working his way into a second-place finish despite starting the day ninth of 10 in the counts. But no one was topping Sotiropoulos yesterday.

Just got an invite to go enjoy a little water sliding, and so I’m cutting it short to do that before I go in later to help out with covering the PCA Main Event. Be smart like Sotiropoulos and head over to the PokerStars blog to follow it all.

Photo: courtesy Carlos Monti/PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: 2016 PCA, Day 3: Learning about Brazil in the Bahamas

I was on for most of Day 2 of the Latin American Poker Tour Bahamas Main Event yesterday, getting a chance to leave a little early again and so wasn’t there for the last few hours of play.

A ton of big names went deep in the sucker, and some are still in it with 10 left. Just looking at the last half-dozen tables or so, Aaron Massey (11th), Ole Schemion (16th), Jeff Rossiter (17th), Mike Leah (20th), Daniel Weinman (21st), last year’s LAPT Bahamas winner Josh Kay (26th), Carter Gill (31st) Marvin Rettenmaier (32nd), Michael Telker (35th), Chris Moorman (39th), Juan Martin Pastor (43rd), Yann Dion (45th), and Michael Mizrachi (48th) all lasted until the latter levels last night.

Among those left in the top 10 are the leader Georgios Sotiropoulous, Joe Kuether, Will Molson, Darren Elias, Ismael Bojang, and the last of the Team PokerStars Pros (and representatives of Latin America), Andre Akkari. A solid line-up, although as I was talking about yesterday, the PCA tends to attract pretty tough fields all around, especially in the marquee events, so it isn’t surprising to see a lot of players with plenty of past results getting back to final tables.

Speaking of Akkari, I didn’t mention yesterday how before the start of Day 1 he and Felipe “Mojave” Ramos -- a “Friend of Team PokerStars” -- hosted the first of the “Breakfast with the Pros” sessions they have scheduled prior to just about every day of play here (pictured above via Neil Stoddart of the PokerStars blog).

The topic of their talk and Q&A was the “boom” presently happening for poker in Brazil, and I have to say despite having just been to Brazil for an LAPT event and having a lot of experience covering tourneys at other LAPT stops, I learned a few things I hadn’t known before about poker in Brazil.

There were a couple of big takeaways for me besides just learning a few more details about how poker has become especially popular in Brazil over recent years, something I could readily see to be the case from my visit to the Brazilian Series of Poker Millions and LAPT Grand Final in São Paulo in late November.

One was how poker’s proponents really have managed to associate the game more readily with sports than with other gambling games in Brazil. The lack of casinos there helps in that regard, as poker is generally played in poker-only rooms or in tournament series like the BSOP.

In America that way of “marketing” poker -- or even just defending the game from its detractors -- can’t only be marginally effective thanks to a legacy lasting more than two centuries placing poker firmly alongside not just other gambling games, but other “immoralities” put under the category of “outlaw” activities. (This is why attempts to “sportify” fail to resonate that much in the U.S., and in other places, too.)

The other interesting item I learned from the talk was how the recent downturn in Brazil’s economy has encouraged legislators now to start allowing casinos and other gambling games in order to find a new revenue source. Which means poker is interestingly going to be caught in the middle somewhat between groups with interest in the new casinos and gambling and the Ministério do Esporte and other who’ll want to continue to keep poker in the “sport” category.

You can read more about the talk here “Reporting on the Brazilian ‘boom.’”

Heading back over now for the LAPT Bahamas finale. It won’t be live streamed, unfortunately, but you can follow the updates from start to finish on the PokerStars blog.

Photo: courtesy Neil Stoddart/PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: 2016 PCA, Day 2: El Nueve for the LAPT

On Thursday I had the luxury of working only part of the day, which still translated to about a nine-hour shift as I went in during the late morning and didn’t leave until around eight. My focus was on the start of the Latin American Poker Tour Bahamas Main Event, a three-day, $2,200 buy-in tournament that allowed reentries up until after the dinner break.

Was once again kind of flummoxed by the turnout for the LAPT Bahamas Main Event, although not to the degree I was a year ago.

Last year on the day before the event began I interviewed then-LAPT President David Carrion about the upcoming season, also asking him for his thoughts regarding the possible turnout for the event a year ago. He said to me he hoped the event (which had a $3,000 buy-in) would draw 250 entries, referring to the fact that it had only been announced a few weeks before and so a lot of players wouldn’t necessarily be aware of it happening right at the very start of the festival.

As the day progressed, it became obvious 250 was an especially conservative goal, and by the time they’d closed registration there were an incredible 736 entries. I almost felt like David had been sandbagging, although I think he likewise was very surprised.

This year Day 1 went similarly, with just about 200 in their seats at the start, then people continuing to arrive in droves all afternoon with many reentering as well. By the end there were 851 entries, exceeding last year’s total by a wide margin.

The lower buy-in helped, and actually means the prize pool isn’t quite what they had last year. It somewhat conforms to the new format the LAPT will be adopting in Season 9 where the Main Event buy-ins are going to be reduced a bit to $1,500. Still, it’s again a nice kickoff to the tour’s season, and again introduced a lot of players to a sorta-kinda “LAPT experience” here in the middle of the Caribbean.

Tons of top pros are in the field, suggesting another tough final table will be coming on Saturday when that trophy pictured above will be awarded (pic courtesy Carlos Monti of the PokerStars blog). Last year the American Josh Kay won the sucker, but he had to get through a final table that included Martin Finger (who finished second), Jose Carlos Garcia (fourth), Taylor Paur (fifth), Dimitar Danchez (sixth), and Mustapha Kanit (eighth). Some are remembering it as the most impressive final table of the PCA a year ago, although I think the FTs produced by the high roller events might have been even tougher.

There are a huge variety of events on the PCA schedule, with lots of lower buy-in ones (some as low as $120 or $300) that surely attract a lot of amateurs and recreational players. But generally speaking -- at least among the events with buy-ins of, say, $2,200 and above -- the quality of skill among the players here is especially high, perhaps the highest (on average) of any tournament series.

There were 220 players making it through to today’s Day 2 of the LAPT Bahamas, where I’ll be again for another one of those nine-hour “partial” shifts. Check the the PokerStars blog to find out how things go in that one as well as the in the $100K Super High Roller and Day 1a of the PCA Main Event.

Photo: courtesy Carlos Monti/PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: 2016 PCA, Day 1: Super High Rolling

Completed a first full day of reporting from the 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure yesterday, where the focus was just about entirely on the $100,000 Super High Roller event that took up just a few tables in the front right-hand corner of the huge poker room (a.k.a. Convention Center) at the Atlantis Resort.

We were stationed in the exact opposite corner of the room -- actually, to be more accurate, just outside of the room in a back area usually reserved for the EPT Live (or, here, PCA Live) folks and the television crew shooting for the edited shows that come later. We were repositioned for this first day mainly because the set for the live streaming and TV shows was still being constructed.

I share the detail of where we were sitting just to point out that we were traversing the entire room each time we walked from our laptops to the SHR event and back, and thus necessarily saw how all of the other side events were getting impressive turnouts as the entire room managed to fill up with activity. In past years the PCA would start a little more slowly, but it looks like more players have arrived early this time around.

That may be due in part to the dozen events on the schedule for Day 1. But I’m also thinking the LAPT Bahamas event that begins today might have gotten a few extras out early this time. This will be the second year the LAPT has put on such an event at the PCA, one that serves as a “Main Event” for the tour as well as a $2,200 buy-in “preliminary” event as far as the entire PCA schedule goes. Will be curious to see if the turnout on Thursday matches or exceeds the 736 entries they had at LAPT Bahamas a year ago.

Like I say, though, the Super High Roller had everyone’s attention, and most of the usual suspects were out to participate in that one. That is Fedor Holz up above (courtesy Neil Stoddart and the PokerStars blog), just a few days removed from winning $3.4 million-plus in that $200K SHR in Manila, and a couple of weeks on from winning a $100K WPT Alpha8 and almost $1.6 million in Las Vegas.

Bill Perkins bought in three times, busting all three, and he intends to come back to try a fourth entry at the start of Day 2 before late reg closes. 2015 WSOP Main Event champion Joe McKeehen took part and did well all day, ending with a top five stack. Businessman Talal Shakerchi finished with the chip lead, with Kathy Lehne (also of the business world) in third position. Lehne took runner-up in that WPT Alpha8 in St. Kitts I covered in December 2014. (She also final-tabled the WPT Alpha8 at the Bellagio in December, taking sixth.)

While the focus was often on the hands, the table talk was equally interesting -- even more so, in some cases. Daniel Negreanu got into an extended monologue about Phil Hellmuth at one point that was obviously entertaining the table quite a bit, including a reference to Donald Trump and some of the parallels between the Poker Brat and the Donald. (You can probably imagine what they are.)

The SHRs are always interesting tournaments to be around. You get a mix of elite pros and the amateurs who are nonetheless serious and usually competitive. There’s always a relaxed feel, suggesting in a strange way a negative correlation between the size of the buy-in and the amount of stress felt by the players.

Gonna move off the SHR today as my beat now becomes that LAPT Bahamas event over the next three days. Might have to wander over there to the SHR once in a while, though, just to see who makes it through to Friday’s final table.

Meanwhile you can wander over to the PokerStars blog today for coverage of the Super High Roller, LAPT Bahamas, other side events, and more.

Photo: courtesy Neil Stoddart/PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: 2016 PCA, Arrival -- Waves About to Crash

We’re setting up here at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, readying for the start of the nine-day, 100-plus event schedule which gets going a little less than an hour from now. Lots of empty tables in the spacious Conference Center at the Atlantis, soon to be filled as things get going here shortly.

Power? Check. Internet? Check? Just waiting for wave upon wave of players to come crashing in to fill the seats, be dealt hands, and start passing chips back and forth.

First up is the $100,000 buy-in Super High Roller, with a dozen events total happening throughout this first day of the festival. Tomorrow comes the Latin American Poker Tour Bahamas event, a $2,200 buy-in affair that was especially popular last year with 736 entries and players coming from 49 different countries to compete.

The LAPT Bahamas event kicks off Season 9 of the tour, and in fact features a bigger buy-in than this year’s Main Events will have ($1,500). But here at the PCA, the event serves as an early, more-than-the-minimum prelim coming before the PCA Main and other tournaments, and so anyone who is here to play poker already will likely be jumping in tomorrow.

Last night a group of us enjoyed a delicious dinner over the bridge at the Poop Deck, where the “Fisherman’s Platter” (which I’m pretty sure I got the year before) again providing a satisfying meal. Already had the chance this morning to reunite with several buds from various outlets here.

Check over at the PokerStars blog today for wall-to-wall coverage of the $100K SHR and more.

Shamus and Shark

Well the rain mostly held off today in Nassau, although the cloudy skies meant there was no need to pull out the bottle of sunblock I tossed in the bag at the last minute before leaving home. Temps were in the mid-70s all day, but with unrelenting 20-mph winds it tended to feel a little more chilly than that.

Actually went down for a short while during the afternoon to sit by the pool, but rather than use the towel to dry off after going in, I stayed dry and used it for a blanket instead.

Was still fun wandering about the resort and checking in on the stingrays, sharks, turtles, sawfish, groupers, lobsters, and other marine life. Almost as much fun just watching the kids follow in amazement as a big school of groupers or rays whizzed past.

Kind of just sitting tight at the moment, watching the gray turn darker as the sun sets before heading out for a trip over the bridge and “off campus” to enjoy some seafood and reunite with many of the folks with whom I’ll be working over the next nine days.

Will be quite a contrast tomorrow in the brightly-lit tournament room, silently sliding around the tables where a lot of figurative sharks will be seated for the first day of the $100K Super High Roller. Steve O’Dwyer won that event a year ago, topping a 50-entry field that included 16 re-entries and taking away about $1.87 million for doing so.

That $200K event in Manila has wrapped up, the one won by Fedor Holz, and it’ll be interesting to see who from that 52-entry field makes it all of the way from the Philippines to the Caribbean to play in this one as well.

Gonna shut it down and find an extra layer to wear before heading out. Be sure to start checking in at the PokerStars blog to follow things as the first day gets going at 12 noon ET tomorrow.

Man, those winds are picking up. Hopefully all the tanks stay intact, or the Atlantis might be dealing with a sharknado.

Back in the Bahamas

Hello from rainy Nassau!

After enduring one of the wettest months in North Carolina history -- including a day of more than two inches’ worth of rain just before the new year -- I’m now down in the Bahamas where wet stuff has followed me once again.

Was cloudy on arrival, although there was some blue up there as I made my way from the Lynden Pindling International Airport over the bridge to Paradise Island and the Atlantis, my home-away-from-home for the next couple of weeks. Will be here from start-to-finish for the 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, where the 100-plus event schedule gets up and running on Wednesday.

Got checked in without any problems, but before I could seriously consider putting on the swim trunks the clouds took over, and now as the sun is about to set there’s a steady rainfall drumming down on the resort. Still, it’s nice to be landed and to have a chance to rest and relax a bit before the long workdays begin.

Everything seems familiar, in fact especially so. As though it hasn’t been a whole year since I was here. Am curious to see who comes out, how the fields shape up, and how the whole sucker plays out as usual. But I’m most looking forward to getting back together with many friends and colleages, some of whom I haven’t seen since last January.

Looking forward to the sun coming back out later in the week, too. More to come.

Image: Weather.com.

The Future Is Now, Bro

Can it really be 2016? How is that possible? I mean I can remember reading 1984 before it was 1984. And watching (and reading) 2001: A Space Odyssey way, way before that. When I read Stephen King’s The Stand (the original version, anyway), it was set in what seemed a distant future. The story began on June 16, 1985.

As my buddy Remko likes to say, the future is now, bro.

I mentioned yesterday how my first trip of 2016 will be a return to the Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Had the chance to go down there a couple of times last year -- once to St. Kitts, the other time to Nassau -- which was a nice, warm way to break up what was a pretty bitter winter for us on the farm, weather-wise.

This year has been markedly different, with temperatures in the low 70s just last week here. Believe it’s a touch warmer down south at the moment and will continue to be so for the first couple of weeks of the new year, so I’ll be packing lots of t-shirts. And a pair of swim trunks, too, for a return down a few of those water slides.

Last year while in Nassau I was writing here and on the PokerStars blog about the PCA having become kind of a central event on the poker calendar, including chatting with Jesse May about that idea. It’s not on everyone’s must-visit list, of course, although it does remain a kind of nexus for all the different tours.

It’s also been around since 2004, taking place on a cruise ship that first year, then at the Atlantis every year since. That’s long enough to give the PCA an especially lengthy history -- a tradition, even -- at least in poker terms.

I guess looking at it from this direction, 2004 doesn’t seem like the future at all, but rather a long time ago.

Photo: “Future,” Hartwig HKD. CC BY-ND 2.0.